trump and his cohorts, as expected, are crowing today about the January jobs report, which added 304k jobs in January 2019.
Meteor Blades has details, breakdowns and insights in the diary “Gov't reports 304,000 new jobs created in January, well above expected numbers” at www.dailykos.com/…
The jobs report does point to a steadily growing economy; however —
- Most of the new jobs were created in the restaurant, hospitality, construction, and health care industries
- November+December numbers were revised down by 70,000
- Wages over the past 12 months are barely outpacing inflation
- The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by about 500,000 to 5.1 million in January
Looked at in isolation (which is what the trumpers want everyone to do), the numbers look great. But, looked at from a historical perspective, going back 10 years, the numbers are nothing out of the ordinary.
The following well-known graph shows the ditch that Obama had to pull the economy out of, while the republicans tried to sabotage every one of his policies. And trump is now enjoying the ride. For that matter, shouldn’t the numbers over the past 12 months have been much better given the massive GOP tax-cut for corporations and the ultra-rich? How much of it went towards job creation and wage growth? Not much, it seems.
The following graph by Aaron Sojourner (Associate Professor, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota and Obama White House Economic Adviser) shows the cumulative number of U.S. jobs over the past years. It also points out trump’s scurrilous statements over the years, trashing the economic accomplishments of the Obama administration and now braying “Jobs Jobs Jobs” while the economy is simply following the trend line established by Obama.
The future looks less rosy as trade wars and immigration wars continue, global economies cool and administration positions get filled with even more incompetent people (Herman Cain for Fed Board).
From www.bloomberg.com/… -
While the job market looks healthy, it’ll be hard to match last year’s strength in employment, as the economy is projected to expand at a more moderate pace in 2019. The tax-cut tailwinds are likely to fade, the state of the trade war remains uncertain and global growth is cooling. In addition, businesses say the shortage of skilled workers is limiting plans to expand their workforce.
Let’s keep reminding people of the real news and the real history and not let trump and the republicans co-opt it with alt-news and alt-history.